Energy Newsbriefs Blog

This current awareness service is prepared by the WSU Energy Program Library with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy State Energy Program. This information is provided for energy professionals and interested members of the public to highlight recent energy-related news, articles, and reports that discuss energy efficiency, energy conservation, and renewable sources of energy in engineering and policy circles.

Category: Industrial

"Local manufacturers who are looking to boost efficiency and increase profitability don’t have to go at it alone. The Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center (TMAC), an engineering program based at The University of Texas at El Paso, is here to help."

"At a lab in Southern California, Microsoft is trying out a radically different way to power the data center, one of the most energy-hungry kind of buildings there is. The solution is fuel cells, thousands of them, everywhere in the building, embedded into a rack of computer servers or even plugged into the individual servers themselves. In this way, Microsoft imagines it might be able to cut the cord entirely from the electricity grid."

"The Bonneville Power Administration’s Energy Smart Industrial program is helping companies better manage their energy use and reduce costs. Since 2009, BPA and Northwest publicly owned electric utilities have partnered with 473 industrial companies on projects that have collectively saved more than 647 million kilowatt-hours of electricity — enough energy to power nearly 60,000 homes for a year."

"This month we will look at the value of starting a proactive Pumped System Improvement program in which major pumped systems are evaluated on an ongoing basis. Prior to starting any new program there must be financial justification; this article shows how using readily available plant production data."

"As a first study of its kind in the Northwest, the IFSA provides a comprehensive and regionally representative account of energy usage characteristics in Northwest industrial facilities and a comprehensive analysis of the levels, use and management of industrial energy."

"Businesses [large commercial, industrial, and institutional] that implement energy efficiency improvements often enjoy other benefits besides utility bill savings. However previous efforts to measure multiple benefits have been sporadic and far from rigorous. Still, evidence suggests that including non-energy impacts can reduce the payback time of some energy efficiency improvements by 50% or better. This report draws on expert interviews and a synthesis of existing literature to describe energy efficiency’s multiple benefits to business enterprises."

"The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation is a public-private consortium of 122 leading U.S. manufacturers, universities, and non-profits that will focus on advanced composites—materials that are three times as strong and twice as light as the lightest metals. These advanced materials have the potential to transform products ranging from wind turbines to automobiles. This new Innovation Institute, headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee and led by the University of Tennessee, will receive $70 million in federal funding provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Manufacturing Office."

"DOE published a Federal Register notice of comment period extension for the notice of data availability regarding energy conservation standards for commercial and industrial fans and blowers. 80 FR 1477 (January 12, 2015). The comment period has been extended until February 25, 2015."

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The Energy Newsbriefs Blog is a continuation of the weekly Energy Newsbriefs. Please bookmark this site and return frequently. Although we will not be accepting comments from within the Blog, we would be happy to hear from you by email at library@energy.wsu.edu